In The Wind - Take One Car

Like a stray cat in the alleyway waiting for the scraps you’ll cast away

Like the grass leans toward the sun.

The moon comes out and pulls the tides away

So close to understanding that the words danced on the tip of my tongue

But when I went to speak them fell just out of reach.

What lesson to the

wanting did the needing have to teach?

I found comfort on the bottom, having nowhere left to fall.

Masked like a

flower in the tall grass, or a robin’s nest inside a log.

I am not what you had

hoped for.

I won’t amount to much of anything.

I am not what you had hoped for

I’m not really anything

So why bother?

Don’t build yourself a life

Don’t build yourself a wealth.

Don’t bother

Why bother?

Everything you build will burn

Everything you love will turn to dust

What great lesson were you trying to teach?

What heavy veil had laid over my

eyes?

What epiphany lied just outside of my reach?

What great fool I had to become

before I could see

I lined my nest like a bower bird with every sparkling thing I’d found

Made a burnt offering of all that I valued and hoped the scent might lure you

out.

But you were nowhere to be found.

Just the echoes of my voice resound

You won’t be pure until you’ve surrendered everything you love

But I couldn’t surrender myself

Could a century of self-loathing undo the years of praise you gave to me.

If I ran out into the ocean would your waves wash all the sins from my body?

The line between my fear and faith too blurred to define, so I’ll just close my

eyes and pray for reprise, so I might repeat myself again and make all the same

mistakes, over and over, for all eternity

Having nothing left only meant I had nothing left to lose, like a plant in the

ground, just the dirt beneath my shoes.

Like a pen without ink, I’m a well

without water.

Don’t cast your coins to me.

The only life worth living was a

life worth nothing at all, so don’t hand me a ladder to climb out of this hole.

Woe is me, but in this woe I’m free, in the sweet comfort of the bottom,

having nowhere left to fall